The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.
Computer-based revisioning database systems store data and provide the ability to track changes in database objects and examine a history of what changes were made, which user made the changes, and when the changes were made. Generally, all users of the revisioning database have the same view of the data. However, conventional revisioning database systems are poorly suited to the needs of certain users, such as intelligence analysts. Intelligence database systems typically store highly sensitive and confidential data that is distributed on a “need to know” basis. Security considerations in intelligence analysis impose restrictions on who can access or receive particular kinds of views of data, but revisioning databases do not typically implement controls on access to views. Intelligence analysts often work on multiple discrete investigations that may draw data from the same centralized revisioning database, but one analyst is not typically allowed to view every investigation, or the data associated with every investigation, or changes made by another analyst, even if the same data is associated with that analyst's own investigations.
Further, distribution of copies of intelligence data is typically restricted, but in conventional revisioning database systems users are permitted to maintain a local mirror copy of at least a portion of the data. The use of a local mirror is not acceptable to the intelligence community. Thus, there is a need for improved ways to distribute selected views of data
Further, changes in intelligence data may be associated with reasons for the changes that are useful to track and display in connection with a change history of the revisioning database. However, conventional revisioning databases do not allow a user to associate change reasons or other annotations with a change history from the database.